Souls Seeking Love
by AYangThang
Summary: A happy ending, is really only the beginning. It doesn't come easy, but with time, and effort, eventually it does come. Amidst the ashes of war, love and devotion will spark anew in the souls who need it most.
1. Chapter 1

**AYangThang:** Blake is really pissing me off in Volume 6. I didn't think she could be any more bone headed than she was in part of volume 4, but there's been some shit coming out of her mouth recently that's just downright idiotic. I mean, we're talking impossibly high levels stupid here. I won't go into spoiler territory. She really does need to forcefully remove her head from her ass when it comes to Yang.

Anyway, since she has aggravated the unholy crap out of me for the umpteenth time, I decided I'm going to do a story where I ship Yang and Kali. This is completely an AU, obviously. Have fun with it. (Kali is best kitty Faunus, and I stand by that.)

Oh, by the way tonight this is getting two chapters so that you guys can really sink your teeth into it, and see where the story's headed. Expect chapter 2 in about an hour or less

 **Souls Seeking Love  
Chapter 1**

 **Setting: Vale, Present Day. 14 years after the Great War.**

It was late at night when the restlessness of a cat Faunus shifted the sheets for the umpteenth time. The woman sat up in the dark, sighing under her breath. Although there was no clock in the room, she knew it was well passed the midnight hour. The crickets chirping lazily outside of the window proved that. She reached for a book over on the night stand, the heavy text was her last resort when it came to occupying her mind.

She no sooner cracked open the book, that the woman next to her rolled onto her side.

"Kali, babe, what the hell?"

"I'm reading."

"Why? Still can't sleep?"

"No, I can't. I don't like this, not one bit."

"You don't have to like it. You just got to bite your tongue and not say anything."

"I'm worried about Blake being accepted into Beacon."

"Oh…"

"Is that really all you have to say?"

"Well, I am half asleep."

Yang Xiao Long grumbled in the darkness, feeling around for the bedside lamp to switch it on. The room came into view thanks to the dim light. Shadows danced on the walls as two women sat side by side in the bed. At first, Yang said nothing. she felt as though there was very little she could reasonably offer. Then the fog of sleepiness lifted, and she found her voice. "In case you forgot, I went to Beacon once too. I turned out fine...more or less."

"I'm well aware of that." Kali replied, closing the book and running her fingers over the leather cover. "That's part of my concern."

"Hey now, it's not all doom and gloom."

"It's not a comfortable life, either, Yang."

The blonde chuckled mildly. "I dunno about that, I'm pretty comfy."

The Faunus at her side merely cast Yang a withering look, the woman far too exhausted to do anything else. There were a list of retorts that came to mind, and a life full of violence she didn't want her child exposed to. Her lips thinned into a tight line. "I don't know how I could possibly support it, knowing what it means."

Yang just smirked, drawing her knees up as she leaned in them. "You make it seem like there's this whole big reason why she wants to go. Ever think maybe she doesn't have one? Or that she didn't think that far ahead?"

Kali could only shake her head at the foolish notion. "Blake isn't that impulsive. She has a reason, and she won't say what that reason is. I'm worried, and you should be too."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I should be. I'm not, though." Yang said, stifling a yawn. "When you get right down to it, being a huntress put food on the table. For me, I guess that was good enough. I didn't need anything besides that."

"It's also a deadly profession, dear. I'm afraid because Blake isn't like you."

"I'd hope to hell not." Yang reached out, grabbing the woman's hands in her own. "Stop before you claw the blankets." Her grasp was strong and true. Calloused fingers ran across Kali's knuckles. "You can spin it around and around all you want, but she's set on this. You're not going to win in an argument about her future. Blake's got her reasons, whatever they are."

"Doesn't it bother you? We don't even know what inspired this in the first place."

"No, not really." Yang yawned again. Then as she rolled back over. "It doesn't matter. If you're that worried about her, I'll deal with it later."

"How much later?"

"Tomorrow."

Kali only sighed as she laid back down, her worries running amok.

* * *

When Yang said she would handle things, it was never something done with care. Frankly, Yang wasn't exactly a careful person. She was many things, but, to say that she lived her life with caution would be a blatant lie. Kali had waited the entire day for something to happen, but the household had been oddly peaceful. The back yard remained intact, and the front had even been tidied, lacking any sign of a training battle.

Yang had spent all afternoon tinkering around with her bike, adding a fresh coat of paint that it sorely needed. Blake had been locked away in Yang's workshop, doing something to that dangerous gun-blade contraption that she called a weapon. All in all, it was an average day, lacking any major injuries, or huntress-in-training related incidents. It was only when sundown came that Kali realized she may have let her guard down a little too early.

Yang didn't step foot into the living room for a quiet evening. That was unusual. Instead, Kali heard noise in the kitchen.

A short cluster of glass bottles sat in a small basket. Much to her constant dismay, it cluttered the corner of the counter along with a few other knickknacks Yang insisted on keeping there. The woven basket collected everything from bread crumbs, bullet casings, and even crystals of volatile dust. Kali even heard the bombastic blonde woman humming to herself.

The two sounds together were almost a promise of forthcoming trouble.

"Yang?" Kali asked from the sitting room. "You don't plan to drink tonight, do you?"

"Sure do."

"It's not even the weekend."

"I told you that I'd take care of Blake, and that's exactly what I'm doing." Yang said loudly enough that Kali could hear her.

Yang took the bottle nearest to her, giving it a small shake as she considered it. The blonde had spent all day trying to decide what to do, and now she had the perfect plan. Smiling at the amber liquid sloshing around on the inside, she let out a tiny chuckle. Then she gave everything a brief look over before nodding to herself. It wasn't the most expensive, or even the best tasting alcohol she owned. She doubted it would appeal to the sensitive senses of a Faunus, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

She chose it because the bottle was almost full and would suit her needs.

A whiskey this harsh, however, needed to be on the rocks. That was a lesson learned only by the trials of time an experience. She had so little to recall her uncle by, but drinking was his favorite method of tutelage. She recalled his outlook on the lowbrow bottle. It lacked a lot of the complex flavors of a better made brand, but she chose not to dwell on that.

Instead, she grabbed two glasses and put some ice into each.

Faunus ears twitched at the sound of ice being cracked from the trays and plunked down into the glasses. Kali set her book down, making her way into the kitchen. "Yang, what are you doing with those?"

"Preparing for some training." Yang said, whiskey bottle in hand, and the two glasses filled with ice.

Kali leaned heavily against the thick open doorframe. "I'd question the kind of training you can achieve with that."

"You'd be surprised." Yang told the woman in front of her. "Besides, it's about time."

"And every time you say _that_ , I dread the outcome."

"I know." Yang said matter-of-factly, her gentle gaze gaining a glint of something distant. A white hot rage had cooled over the years into faintly burning embers. She harbored memories that were singed, they would never completely heal. "Blake needs to know how to look after herself. There are some things Beacon can't teach her, or rather, that it won't teach her."

Kali let out a tiny hum. She didn't agree, not entirely, but her relationship with Yang had been founded on poorly calculated trust. It was sometimes pure insanity, plain and simple. "And you will?"

"Well, it's not like I can protect her." Yang grumbled, deflated. "What else do you want me to do? Follow her around? Bash in the face of every Grimm, lowlife, and jackass she's going to run into?"

"No, actually, I was hoping you'd try to convince her that your line of work is dangerous, and that she shouldn't go to Beacon." Kali muttered as her ears folded back. "It's what I would have liked you to do."

"Yeah, but I tried that, and off she went to Signal for beginners training anyway." Yang shot back. "Besides, if Signal didn't convince her, Beacon just might. The huntress life is paved with sin and bathed in destruction. What little honor a huntress might have comes at the cost of thankless pride. She'll figure that out. Maybe when she does, she'll come home."

Kali just sighed. "That's roughly what her father said. I don't know if I agree, though. In any case, please tell me that's all for you." Gesturing to the amber booze, Kali offered what she knew to be a stupid question. "You're not going to actually let her drink that, are you?"

"Like I said, about that time." Yang said sincerely to the most beautiful Faunus that Yang had ever known. "Hey, trust the huntress when it comes to training one."

The cat eared woman was much older than Yang. Kali hid her figure beneath conservative kimonos and full figured dresses, but truth be told, she was a voluptuous woman. Her eyes glimmered in the darkness thanks to her heritage. Under the bright kitchen light, her orbs were breathtaking shade of molten gold. Her keen eyesight had waned over the many years that Yang had known her, but the thin wire frames only added to Kali's bookish charm.

"I still say she's too young, but, I know you'll never listen to reason." She pulled off those glasses, and rubbed them with the sleeve of her kimono. "I'd rather that she didn't pick up the habit. I think that it's bad enough you drink the way that you do."

"Her first drink is going to be with me, babe." Yang told her, setting the materials down to lean on the counter. A glance out of the window showed her exactly where Blake sat, looking out inquisitively at the stars. "Beacon's not a high class finishing school. It's a whole different beast, and she's got to prepare in more than just combat. She's not half bad in a fight, but if she can't hold a drink or two, she's not going to be ready to deal with the dangers of missions."

"I still don't know how I feel about Beacon, either." Kali frowned, the conversation was old and tired by this point. She'd tried to talk her daughter out of it, but that had been a failing endeavor. "Why did she even apply, Yang?" Kali asked as she replaced her glasses, now that they were free of smudges. "I just don't understand."

"Maybe you're not supposed to." Yang shrugged. "Maybe it's not your thing to know…"

"Why do you keep saying that?" Kali questioned, her annoyance clear as a bell. "There's no reason for her to be going out there, risking her life. It's not noble, it's not even a point of pretentious pride."

"Don't ask questions you won't like the answer to." Yang said as she gathered the glasses and booze bottle. "Now, I can either grab a third glass so you can join us, or, you can go back to reading that book you bought just the other day."

"You know well and good that I don't drink hard liquor." Kali said, kissing Yang tenderly on the lips before sighing. "Please don't aim to get her drunk. You're bad enough with a hangover."

"No promises, she's probably a light weight, but I'll try not to." Yang said, as she headed for the back door. The blonde hesitated before turning back to Kali. "I know it doesn't look like it, but I just want her to be safe."

* * *

In truth, Yang didn't know why Blake had applied for Beacon either. Still, the girl had passed the tests. At the end of the day, it was easier not to ask. Better for Kali not to know, and for Yang to merely accept the fact laid in front of her. In a different time, perhaps Yang would have asked those all too important questions. Maybe in a different place, she would have been able to rationalize the unattended argument between mother and daughter.

As it was though, Yang couldn't do either of those things. Instead, she chose to prepare Blake for Beacon as best as she could.

The young Faunus was sitting there on the back steps, glancing at Yang as the blond sat down beside her. Pouring two drinks, Yang handed one off to Blake before taking the other one for herself.

"So, did you think about what we should talk about?" Yang asked, taking a long, slow sip.

She watched Blake sniff at her own glass. Feline ears folding over as she looked at the gently sloshing liquid. Another sniff, and she glanced at Yang again. The older huntress nodded in encouragement. With trepidation, Blake took a sip, her lips pulling downward at the taste. Her whole face contorted as she swallowed.

"No good?" Yang asked with a grin.

The Faunus just shook her head.

"Drink it anyway." Yang told her. "It's training."

"How is drinking going to train me?" Blake asked, eyeing the glass of fluid with disdain.

"If you can't burn off a buzz with your aura, you can't handle yourself. What if something gets spiked when you're not looking, ever think of that?" Yang sipped on her own drink again before continuing. "You're a pretty young thing…easy on the eyes…what happens if someone gets too interested? What of they don't take no for an answer?"

Blake said nothing.

"You didn't think of that, did you?" Yang sighed at length before shrugging. "Well, now you have. So you just drink that, and you can thank me later."

"This might be training, but it's a nasty way to do it." Blake muttered.

"The only way." Yang told her.

"Whatever…"

"I had to learn that the hard way, and it was a different time back then." Yang bit her lip, and swore under her breath. She didn't want to admit it, but for her, drinking had always been her blessing, and, her curse. "Way different, actually."

* * *

 **Setting: Vale, Flashback – Nearing the end of the Great War.**

A foot stopped on a burning newspaper. The black lettering declared a proposition of peace talks between humans and the Faunus. While this might have sounded like a blessing, Yang could only curse as she put out the fireball that had been flung at her from angry rioters. Leaning heavily on a wall in a nearby allay, she couldn't help but hate the way Vale became. It was nothing but unending malignancy, and all that had done was attract Grimm.

In a state of emergency, Ozpin made the only order he could. He had to quickly restore peace.

The people marched down the city streets, Faunus on one side, humans on the other. A barricade sliced the city down the middle at the juncture between downtown Vale, and the guarded district that the humans populated. Everything beyond the barricade was labeled as a human's only zone. The only allowance made was to the hunters and huntresses of Vale, serving the line to keep the city under control.

Yang crushed the propaganda paper, setting it ablaze all over again as she sneered at the man who'd thrown it at her. He continued proclaiming with great joy that Faunus should be done away with. She wished she could break his nose. That wouldn't solve anything, but it would have made her feel better. Swallowing back her anger, she stormed off, passing by the rabbit Faunus that had endured his abuse.

"Are you okay, Velvet?" Yang asked.

The woman nodded wordlessly, too busy patching up what little was left of her ego along with the bruising on her ears.

"You're an idiot, Xiao Long." Coco replied harshly. "You can't lose your temper every time someone insults Velvet. You'd be beating up pretty much anyone who passes us by in the street. They're not worth the effort."

"Tell me something I don't know, Adel."

The clinking of bullets into a chamber cut through the low boiling rage that bubbled beneath the silence. Coco Adel, team leader of the newly reformed team CFVY was having great difficulty with the new addition to her team. The young blonde upstart was nothing like her former team member, and the bitterness showed. "Look, I don't know what you think you're doing, but if I've told you once, I've told you a million times. You can't jump the wall every time people start shouting."

"I don't see why I can't." Yang spat. "My job is to keep the peace, and I am."

Coco shook her head. "Humans don't mingle with Faunus, Yang, it's just not safe." She looked out to the barricade. "You've been lucky so far, but when if the rioters did you harm? If they started turning on you, there'd be no way to get you out safely."

"Tell that to Velvet and every human she tries to talk to." Yang bit out, causing Coco to deflate.

"My team was assigned to this side of the wall. The rules don't apply to her." Coco said, feeling her gut pinch as she laid out the well-worn justification that she didn't even agree with. "Listen, our job is to enforce peace. That means keeping Faunus and humans at arm's length until Vale's council comes to a decision about Faunus rights. You can't just go around blowing holes in the pavement every time someone pisses you off. That's not how we handle things."

"It's how I do." Yang growled out as looked over to the man who had gotten up only to hand out more fliers. "Bastard was lucky I didn't really bust in his face." Yang snarled from under her breath. Another glance to Velvet made Yang even angrier. She watched the Faunus woman wince with every bob of her long fur lined ears. "He hurt her."

"It's not so bad." Velvet mumbled softly.

"Like hell it isn't." Yang said as she reached up to caress the injury as softly as she could, Velvet closing her eyes to try and hide how much it pained her.

"He's lucky I didn't throw his ass over the wall of the barricade." Yang told them. "Let him see what it's like to have a few Faunus return the favor."

"Yang, they'd kill him." Coco warned. "You can't do that. I'd never allow it."

"You saw what he did to Velvet. If he gets what's coming to him, so be it." Yang bellowed. "I'm sick of this shit."

Coco sighed, glancing to the Faunus woman whom she held in particularly high regard. "Velvet, can you still hold the line?" Coco asked gently, willing to let her teammate rest in the shadows if she absolutely needed to.

"I'll do what I can." Velvet said, her determination was one of the many reasons that Coco trusted her so deeply. Velvet had proved her willingness to put herself in harm's way for the sake of others. More than once, Velvet met that adversity face-to-face, refusing to back down. That she was also a pacifist by nature worked in her advantage. She was able to quell some of the most heated of the rioting Faunus.

Her gentle words had spared many human lives, and that couldn't be over looked, even when the most violent stood up to defy her.

When Yang turned to follow Velvet, Coco grabbed her. "Not you, Yang. I'm benching you."

"She's not going back out there without me." Yang bit out. "I'm not cool with it, Coco. I'm not going to just sit around with my thumb up my ass while people beat up on her."

Coco, always a hands-on leader, backhanded Yang with flawless precision. "Get a grip, Yang. I mean it."

The action was well spoken about amongst the students of Bacon. A good job would earn a firm opened palm pat on the behind, but failure to follow orders always came with a slap in the face. Yang took it, like she had taken every reprimand from Coco in the past. The angry fashionista remaining stoic. She glared through her deeply colored glasses. Yang didn't back down, and finally, Coco sighed.

"Yang, let's be real here. You don't belong at this post. You belong with the other students helping the teachers." Her tone edged with sympathy as she shook her head. "I allowed you to substitute Yatsuhashi on this team because I thought you could handle it."

"I can."

"You call that, over there, handling it?" Coco asked, gesturing to the fist sized indent in the street where a man could have been standing.

"He backed off, didn't he?"

"Not the point." Coco shot back, clicking her tongue against her teeth. "I told you to be intimidating if you had to be. I didn't tell you to be a loose cannon."

"You don't screw around with my partner and expect to get away with it." Yang told Coco. "That doesn't fly with me. Never has, never will."

"Listen up, rookie, I let you partner up with Velvet because I thought you'd have a little faith in her." The leader began, her voice hard. "If you can't trust Velvet to look after herself a little, then you're no good as her partner. If that's the case, you're worthless to me." Coco scoffed as she tossed her glance back to the barricade, and the Faunus woman holding the angry rioters at bay. "Now get out of here, go cool off. I don't want you back here until you do."

Yang stomped off passed the barricades, hands at her sides in white knuckled fists. She knew Coco was right, the leader of team CFVY made the right call, but that didn't make the reprimand any easier to accept. Her cheek stung in the way only Coco could ever cause. Her words cutting deeper than a strike ever could. Yang suspected, that was why she'd been put on Coco's team in the first place.

Coco was just as volatile and acerbic as Yang, just as hardheaded as the brawler, with enough gumption to keep Yang in her place. For what little comfort it was worth, Yang generally liked living among her team members. Now though, she could only walk away from her post. Relinquishing it to the other hunters and huntresses upholding the order in the unruly downtown streets of Vale.

As a Faunus man spat at her feet, Yang bit back a curse.

She'd never seen such unmitigated racism in her life. Defeated, angry, and itching for a way to unleash her rage, Yang did the only thing she knew how to do. She walked into the first open bar she came across, and ordered a beer.

The first of many…


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 **Setting: Vale, Present day. 14 years after the Great War.**

It was old, dusty memories like that, that made Yang feel older than she really was. Aged beyond her years by circumstances she couldn't control. Opening her eyes, Yang decided to ignore Blake's commonly snarky attitude. Instead, she sat quietly, letting her mind drift as she leaned back against one of the tall wooden banisters that surrounded the porch.

"What are you thinking about?" Blake asked.

Yang didn't have a good answer. Her thoughts were too jumbled. Like everything from back then, time had mended a great many regrets into something more palatable. Even still, they were bitter in the face of what she could have done. If only she'd chosen to act differently, chosen to be a better person, perhaps she wouldn't have acted with violence.

Perhaps, if she hadn't lost her temper, it would been a standard day of duty. A normal afternoon of upholding the forced peace until sunset.

That wasn't what happened though. She had lost her temper. She had gone off to drink. In doing all of that, fate had set its eyes on her, paving the way to the life she knew now. She could retrace every single step as often as she wanted. Upon retrospect, Yang knew, if given the choice, she's go back in time and lose her temper again.

"What am I thinking, huh?" Yang grumbled out, rehashing Blake's question slowly, as if tasting the words for the first time. "Let's just say, its crap that I don't want to be reminded of." She said honestly, refusing to offer the huntress-in-training in front of her any sort of half-baked lie. "Anyway, we got to do something while we're sitting here. I said we could talk about anything you wanted, so I figured you'd have something of a list."

"Maybe." Blake nodded.

"We won't have time to talk like this once you're in school." Yang noticed. "Beacon's dorm rules, and all…"

"I'm not looking forward to that." Blake said. Truth be told, the Faunus had thought about conversation topics. She knew exactly what she wanted to ask. She just didn't know what Yang would say. The Faunus weighed her words, testing them in her mind over and over again. She finally found the courage to say them out loud. "Tell me the story of you and mom." Blake spoke as she looked out into the night sky.

"That old thing..." Yang said slowly, almost as if by surprise. "Don't you think you're a little old for stories like that?"

She shrugged, amber eyes turning to meet the human head on. Yang had laugh lines lingering in places that they hadn't back when Blake had first met her, but that had been years ago. Blake had been a little girl then, unaware of the complexities between the couple. "What's the matter?" Blake jibed dryly. "Are you too old to remember?"

"Smartass…" Yang grunted as she scratched the messy mane of hair atop her head. She never could quite get it the way she wanted. "You were there. You should know. It was just a thing that happened."

"Really?" A dark eyebrow quirked up.

"That really so hard to believe?" Yang shot back. "People fall in love all the time, it's not magic or anything."

"Yeah, they do, but…" A long suffering sigh fell from the young woman's lips. Shyly, she found herself picking at a wayward little weed that was popping out from one of the cracks in the wooden step. "I hope you don't expect me to just believe my mom fell in love with a strapping young huntress-in-training."

"Uh…why not?"

"Because I doubt that's the way it actually went."

"Well, I mean…you know…I was so hot, I caught fire." Yang grinned then. "What? What's the matter with that story?"

"Besides the fact that it's not real?" Ears flattening back into the long dark curls of black hair, Blake looked away again, studying her drink, and then the stars once again.

"You want the gritty details, you mean." Yang grumbled heavily, her voice thick with the onset of sympathy. A deeper understanding bubbling up from beneath the implication.

"If you want to put it that way." Blake said before managing the courage to look Yang in the eye. "A human and a Faunus getting together in the middle of Vale, during one of the most volatile civil rights movements in Vale's history…" Blake looked away then. "It was pretty much illegal…"

"It wasn't that bad." Yang cleared her throat. "Sure, I mean people gave us dirty looks and all that. Really though, there was no law saying that a human and a Faunus couldn't be together. That had already been abolished."

"Was it?"

"Weellllllll…..kinda….maybe."

"So, it wasn't."

"Damn it." Yang muttered. "It was illegal, but only in Vale. Patch has always been open to human and Faunus relationships. It's never been against the law here…but there's never been any town wide riots here, either."

"In Vale, you broke the law, then…"

"I didn't, not exactly." Yang told her. "Well, I mean, legally speaking, as a huntress I could talk to Faunus all I wanted. We were allowed to talk to both sides of the dispute while the council argued over what sort of rights Faunus would get." The blonde looked away then. "There were some allotted zones where humans and Faunus shared space, but those buildings were few and far between. Your mom…she's the one that broke the law way more times than me…not that she cared."

"It didn't change what most people thought, though." Blake said timidly.

"Yeah, well, screw what people thought." Yang groused. "My uncle had a saying about that. Something like, 'Assholes are only made for spewing shit anyway'. Some of the best advice he ever gave me."

"I'll bet what you did wasn't very popular." Blake retorted earnestly. "And I know the reason you two _don't_ talk about it…is…because of me."

"Blakey…"

"I know I have problems." Blake interrupted. "And I know that it's because of when I was a kid." The young woman gritted her teeth, a wealth of information had been denied to her over the years because of her past. "I won't be able to get over the past if I keep burying it."

Yang licked her lips slowly, wondering what she could really say about the matter. "I don't know what you expect me to tell you, Blake. I guess that depends why you want to know in the first place."

"I'm an adult now, aren't I?" The Faunus asked then, swirling the first glass of whiskey she'd ever been given in her life. She didn't like it very much, but Yang wanted her to drink it. She forced down another tiny sip. It didn't taste any better on the second try. "Old enough to fight Grimm, old enough to drink. That's what you always said, right?"

"Yeah, so what?"

Nervously, Blake took a shallow breath. "Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but, I figured that might include everything else too."

"Hmm." Yang offered a dirty smirk. "Didn't we ever teach you not to kiss and tell?"

"You taught me a lot more than that when you forgot that I could _hear_ you." Blake groused with a slight shiver. She knew way more than she wanted to know. Yang was loud, and the house wasn't sound proof. Incidents had occurred more than once, thanks to human naivety. "Anyway, I'm not asking about _that_ kind of stuff."

"Then what are you looking for?" Yang asked.

Blake shrugged, swallowing down a bit of her self-consciousness along with the bitterness of the cold beverage. Somehow, that didn't make it any easier. "It's just that I've always wondered how you made it work…you know, with the age difference, the racial divide…everything, really. From my perspective, you two were just really weird. It'd be nice to have some real answers."

Yang never had been quite sure how they'd managed over the years. She hadn't put a whole lot of thought into it. She didn't need to. Then again, a promise was a promise. One of the things Yang always resented about her own upbringing was that her parents never made good on theirs. She wasn't going to be that type of hypocrite.

"When the fighting got bad, we knew we needed more people. We started taking help from anyone who wanted the riots to stop, so long as they weren't racist." Yang said softly. "Your mom and dad were volunteers helping to stop the protests at the time. They had badges to cross the barricade…sometimes, you'd even be with them."

* * *

 **Vale: Flashback – Nearing the end of the Great War**

Yatsuhashi sat in a wheelchair, bandages covering his body as he dished soup into small bowls. It was the least he could do as he recovered. Someone beside him would put water into even smaller cups before pushing the tray down the line. Lastly someone else would place a wrapped sandwich onto the tray, and move it off to the side, waiting to be taken by a line of hungry hunters and huntresses.

Yang rested lazily along a stack of crates, idly munching on an old apple that the cooks insisted should be thrown to the Faunus over the barricade because of the brown spot eating away at one of the sides. With a pocket knife, she's merely hacked off the bad bit of fruit, tossing it the nearest waist bin before eating the rest of it for herself.

"Hey, how long you think this whole thing's going to last?"

"The peace talks?" Yatsuhashi asked with his low voice, not taking his eyes off of his work. "I don't know, but I hear that the Faunus representatives have made something of a list."

"Oh, where did you hear that from?" Yang asked with her mouth full.

"The men who pass by." He said, nodding over to two large men in question. One of them held a little girl in his arms as she toyed with a small shredded book. "His name's Ghira, the one beside him is Tucson. They have contacts on the inside. I don't know how truthful they're being when they say that these talks could last a while."

Yang groaned. "I'm sensing a 'but' tacked onto that, someplace."

"As the son of a village headman, I know firsthand that treaties of any kind are not something to take lightly." The man told her sternly before his broad shoulders drooped. "When one considers the magnitude of an entire kingdom, I would suspect the matter complicates further. What's worse, Vale is not the only one that must come to a decision in this matter. Our brethren must also do so. If not, we risk war all over again."

"And as a headman's son, what would _you_ do, in all of this?" Yang asked.

"What I would do, does not matter. What the kingdom's choose, also does not matter." He said thoughtfully. "No matter the laws they pass, the hearts and minds of the people must be willing to uphold those laws. If they are unwilling, then these treaties will ultimately fail." He turned to Yang then, the thought distracting him greatly. "I've heard this is why the Faunus have demanded to be given a kingdom of their own."

"Yeah, like Atlas would agree to that." Yang scoffed, tossing her apple core in the same smelly trash bin she sat next to. "Vale's one thing, but I don't see Atlas caving into that. They're still pissed off that Vacuo won't forfeit some of their kingdom's territory."

"It isn't as if Vale capitulated on that either." Yatsuhashi said with a soft smile. "More importantly, the stipulation of allotted land for the Faunus has already been agreed upon. If it will be a new kingdom or not, well, that remains to be seen."

"Who threw in the towel on that one?"

"That has not yet been announced." He replied. "Rumors are plentiful, but the truth has been hard to come by..."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 **Setting: Vale, Presant Day. 14 Years after The Great War**

"Dad would take me past the barricades?" Blake asked, trying to remember it. She couldn't.

"Your mom would too, sometimes. We'd see them standing on Beacon grounds a lot." Yang nodded ever so slightly as she took a long breath.

"Were they..." Blake shut her mouth with a click.

"No." Yang said to the unfinished question. "When I met your mom, she'd already broken it off with him. You know it wasn't out of malice."

Blake frowned, but nodded anyway. "Yeah." She whispered. "I know."

"What? I'm not good enough for you?" Yang jibed.

"No, it's not that." Blake was quick to say, but Yang's smirk was full of understanding. "You've always been good to me. That's never been the problem, I swear."

"Easy there kiddo. There's nothing wrong with wondering what might have been." Time ticked away as Yang considered the real question hidden in Blake's words. "Well, if you're going to get all sentimental about the whole damn thing, I guess you'd better get comfortable. You're in for a good long sit-down on this one." She pulled the stopper off the whiskey bottle, and topped off the girl's glass before also refilling her own.

Then with a sip of liquid courage, she began.

"First off, let's get a few uncomfortable things hashed out." Yang said. One, I wasn't blind. Your mom was a nice woman, and she was really pretty. When we first sat down to really talk, I'd been hurt. It didn't matter that I'd just gotten the crap kicked out of me. I would have had to have been a freakin' idiot not to notice a sexy lady paying attention to me. Secondly, I was a horny young huntress-in-training. My head went places, concussion or not. Thirdly…" Yang bit her tongue, there were some things Blake probably didn't need to know.

"What?" Blake asked, trying to prompt Yang back into speaking.

The blonde waved it off. "Actually, never mind the thirdly, not important."

The glare Yang received in response made the lilac eyes woman roll her eyes. In spite of that, Blake wasn't going to let the matter go. "Yang, you promised me we could talk about anything…"

"Look, I was lonely, Blake." Yang muttered. "Lonely, and stupid…and as much as I brush it off, those uprisings in the streets, they got to me." Yang rubbed her hands together, an action born of nervousness and agitation spinning itself together. "I didn't have a family. I was more or less alone in my life. Now, let's not get too disgusting here, but, you've got to remember that." Yang paused, taking another sip of the stiff drink. At the rate she was going, the story would be the death of her liver. "Now, imagine my brain on painkillers and aura enhancers, and then you tell me where you think my logic went when a woman almost twice my age paid attention to me."

"Knowing you, you didn't have any logic." Blake deadpanned uncomfortably.

"Bingo." Yang said, her finger flicking as if ticking off a box in thin air. "It wasn't sunshine and roses at first, I'll give the situation that. Actually, the day I suspected something between your mom and I, it was the day I was being released from the hospital. I tried to push her away, but that just completely backfired."

"Why were you in the hospital?"

"Eh, I was drunk and got a little cocky. I figured I could pick a fight with a racist asshole. He was a huntsman too, and I was too drunk to win. Though, we did beat the hell out of each other, so, I guess that was a thing..."

* * *

 **Setting: Vale, Flashback – Nearing the end of the Great War.**

Yang could say with absolute certainty that pain had a color. She couldn't quite describe it, but it blurred with each and every breath. The afternoon sun was hitting her square in the face. Blindly she reached over to yank the drapes closed. Her eyes still hurt. In fact, everything hurt. The blonde woman cursed under her breath, rubbing away the soreness on her face. The ache in her head throbbing softly. Persistently letting her know that daylight was not her friend. Absently, she could feel the fizzling of her aura as it buzzed beneath her skin, smoothing out knotted muscle and open wounds.

She'd never had her aura completely shattered before. It was nothing like she had ever experienced. A weakness in her limbs made her feel completely worthless in a way she had never assumed possible.

She knew for a fact that she never wanted it to happen again. "This sucks." She sighed to herself, grabbing blindly for a bottle of water to guzzle down. She desperately needed the hydration. Some of it trickled out of her mouth as her hands shook, but she didn't care. She emptied the bottle and tossed it, cursing under her breath when it didn't even make it halfway to the open mouth trash can.

How could she be so feeble?

The huntress-in-training laid back down, too exhausted to do anything else.

It was release day, her most anticipated day, and she could hardly move off of the bed she laid on. It was pathetic, and inwardly she chastised herself. She was better than this. She _had_ to be. She heard a soft knocking on the wooden door before it opened.

"Yang?" The now familiar voice said to her.

"Kali, that you?" Yang asked, her throat feeling dry and raspy.

"Yes." The cat Faunus replied gently. She bent down, picking up the empty water bottle, depositing it into the recycling bin. "The nurse said that you've got some paperwork to sign."

"Damn it…" Yang cursed, too tired to sit up just yet.

"Are you thirsty?" Kali asked as she came over to the bedside. Yang looked so pale, her lips scrunched up in agony. The blonde nodded faintly. It was a hard sight to behold as the cat Faunus fished around in her large knitted purse. "You're lucky I have just the thing for that." Finally she found another cold bottle of water she'd purchased from the vending machine. She set it down on the table.

"So, where are the papers?" Yang asked.

"The nurse has them." Kali nodded. "She'll be here soon. It shouldn't take too long."

"Yeah, it's all standardized crap." Yang grumbled. "I'm going to need some time though."

"I'll leave you to it then." Kali replied, her hand drifting onto Yang's shoulder for a moment. "I have some errands to run, but, I promise I'll be back soon."

Yang waved her off, still hesitant to move much more than that. She felt awful. What made matters worse was that Kali's voice was always gentle. Too gentle for Yang's liking, like that of a mother. It made sense, of course, because Kali _was_ a mother. A single one at that. The blonde refused to think too deeply on old wounds. Those were best left forgotten in the horrible past that had been her own childhood.

Wherever Raven was didn't matter. Whatever had happened to her father, wasn't something she could dwell on anymore.

She had her own life to lead, her own concerns to weigh her down. So, instead, Yang forced herself to sit up. She sipped more carefully from this bottle to make it last. Eventually, the nurse came in with all of the documents in hand. Yang painstakingly signed all of them before collapsing back onto the pillow. It took some time before the nurse even returned with a bag of clothes in hand, and a list of prescription medications to be filled at the nearby pharmacy.

Yang thanked the woman, slowly slipping into her clothing. It was one of the few times she hated herself for wearing skin tight shorts that hugged each and every curve. They also unceremoniously dug into the side of her hip, where a very deep bruise had yet to heal. Her whole body protested each action.

Her tank top was easier, but just barely, the soft material caressing her skin in a more soothing fashion. The jacket that went over it though, that was more than a little difficult. Her knee high boots were a nightmare. Finally though, she was dressed, the medical dressings on her forehead, arms, and torso tugging only slightly as she moved. It could have been worse.

Her bandaged hands were her deepest grievance. She wouldn't be able to throw a solid punch for weeks.

Although she considered leaving on her own, Yang waited until Kali returned, her gentle footfalls alerting the human to the visitor. Kali hadn't taken too long.

"Yang, are you ready to go?" The Faunus said, trying her best not to agitate Yang's already sensitive hearing. As a cat Faunus with ears atop her head, she knew all too well what horror loud sounds could cause to a person already in pain. "I have the car near the front entrance."

"I told you, you don't have to do this." Yang said then, looking over at the scroll sitting at her table side. "I've got friends to look out for me if I need them."

"That's true, I suppose. You would have a team to rely on. However, I should be the one to do it." Kali said, insisting upon the fact for the umpteenth time. "Please, accept my gratitude. You've done so much for my daughter and I. It's the least I can do to help you recover."

"Huntresses like me are built pretty solid. It's not that big of a deal"

"But, you're hurt..." A sad little noise, something inherently feline, slipped from Kali's lips.

Yang wasn't sure what exactly that sound meant. She'd never really interacted much with Faunus in the past. Kali was right though. Yang was hurt. That wasn't something she could just shrug off. She was in no condition to get on her bike and drive. Public transport would be hell.

"Please Yang." Kali begged.

Finally, Yang nodded softly. "Fine, but just a drive. Nothing else…"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 **Setting: Vale, Present Day. 14 Years after the Great War**

"Were you really that hurt?" Blake asked.

"Oh, yeah, I was banged up pretty bad." Yang said with a little nod. "More than you'd ever really believe, I think. You probably don't remember."

Blake shook her head. She'd shoved down that horrible memory, blocked most of it away. Now, it only tormented her in the depth of sleep. Frankly that was bad enough. Yang and Kali never brought up the details. They feared dredging up that terrible event. Yang decided it was time to really dig into it. To say what they'd been very careful not to.

"You were a runner when you were little." Yang murmured, testing the waters, fearing the trauma of the past would still cut Blake too deep. "If you got scared, you'd run. You always did. It's just that, you never ran _to_ anyone. It was always away from people."

Blake only nodded, that much she was well aware of. She never had been able to explain why she had done that so much. Why sometimes, she still wanted to.

"Your mom still doesn't know what spooked you that day, but you ran away from the Faunus side of the park. You were little enough to wiggle through one of the posts of the fencing. On the human's side of the barrier, you ran down an alley you didn't belong in…" Yang was careful, gauging Blake's reaction, but the Faunus said nothing. Yang sighed softly. "Blake, we don't have to do this."

"Don't we?" The Faunus asked, her voice dripping in uncertainty. "I can't keep living like this…afraid of my own shadow. I hate it." Blake muttered then, her voice lowering to a shaky growl. "I _hate_ it."

"Yeah, that's about normal." Yang let out with a tired breath of air.

The countryside was calm and peaceful. Patch was a little island, lacking the violence of the larger cities within the kingdom. It was tucked away from most of the ravenous Grimm, and lay nestled among a sparse community. With only a few shopkeepers, and plenty of open land, there wasn't much time for hatred on the sleepy little island. It was the way Yang preferred it.

Honest work came before petty bigotry.

Faunus and humans weren't always the best of friends. They just weren't bitter enemies on principle, either. In her youngest years, Yang had lived a gentle life. She had been far away from the torment that went on in the cities. Now, she felt she understood why her father had procured this home away from a great many modern conveniences. As a hunter, he simply didn't need them. As a father, he knew Vale's main city wouldn't provide comfort.

The choice had probably been an easy one, all things considered.

As the true depth of night gently fell upon the household, Yang glanced to Blake. Those same facts still cloaking them both. Although times had firmly changed the laws and political policy, the minds of the people were slower to adapt. The way the humans and Faunus fought remained the same. Blake was lucky to have been raised away from most of it. The young Faunus had been spared a great many darker truths.

Schooling at Beacon would unrelentingly rip Blake's sensibilities away from her. Yang wasn't sure that even she was okay with that. The world was an ugly place. Yang didn't want to consider just how naive Blake might be, or how the mistreatment she'd received in the past might have forever scarred the girl.

"Blake, look, every hunter I've ever met has some sort of deep problem. Sometimes they're not very big, or sometimes they're just personal. The fact is, though, every hunter has one." Yang said, as though it somehow excused her drinking problem. Just like her family before her, she knew her vice well. She poured more booze down her gullet. She had long since admitted that the personal demon was there to stay. "And, just like everyone has a problem, everyone had something to get by. For me, that's drinking…runs in the family."

Blake only shrugged her shoulders, never quite sure what to think about Yang's insistence to imbibe. Looking down at the glass in her hand, that liquid made everything seem heavier. As though a great burden had been placed upon her shoulders. One that in truth, Blake doubted she was ready for.

"You'll find one too, eventually." Yang went on to say, not allowing the Faunus beside her to ignore the implication. "I deal with my anger better now than I did back then. I'm not fixed, though. The rage still lingers. It still sits there, and like it or not, it's there to stay."

Blake nodded. She knew Yang's temper could become dangerous, she'd seen that first had.

Yang sighed softly, realizing that her words would never be a comfort. She wondered if that was a good or a bad thing. "Blake, I answer a lot of my problems with my fist. Sometimes it freaks me out just how many problems can be solved with violence." She tipped back her glass again, but the bitter liquid dulled nothing more than it already had. "They say it's not the answer, but as a huntress, you'll find that it ends up being a solution you're forced to turn to sometimes. There are times when you have to pull the trigger. You won't have a choice. It'll be you, or them. You've got to choose you. Always."

"I know." Blake said, her voice gaining only shaky conviction. "I will."

"Just…" Yang licked her lips. "Just, uh, try not to get used to it. That's not the kind of thing you want to get immune to."

"I wouldn't want to." Blake said softly.

"I didn't either, but, when you see the same things every day…" Yang trailed off with a slow sigh. "Eventually, you just hit a breaking point. There comes a time when everything you do is justifiable. That day, I was just pissed off enough that I felt everything I did could be excused away. When I stop and think about it, Cardin was a classmate, and yeah he was a racist prick…but he was just doing his job. Not the right way, but he _was_ doing it."

Blake's eyes drifted, seeing nothing but wet red splattering the pavement. Distantly, she remembered the shouting, and how her cheek stung. The details were lost, but not the red, the loud, and the ghosting imprint of a large man's hand slapping her. Blake felt her ears fold flat. She curled up into a ball as she pressed her own palm to her cheek.

"You were a Faunus running around on the human side of the city." Yang murmured. "You might have ben a child, but, you shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have gotten drunk and picked a huge fight with him. He was in the right, and I was wrong. Still kinda pissed off that the fucker hit you, but for Cardin, that's actually mild."

"Why did you?" Blake asked. "Why did you pick a fight for me?"

Yang didn't want to push it. She didn't want to drag Blake to that dark past. A past where an adult man beating a Faunus child could even be remotely socially acceptable. Yang hated thinking about it. Nowadays, the legal system had caught up. There were penalties for that sort of thing now. It hadn't been the case back then. Back in a time when any human could do what they wished, and Faunus couldn't do a thing in return.

Those days made her sick, and Blake, in all reality, had been one very lucky little girl.

"My favorite bar was down that same ally. You've got to remember, I drank a lot more back then. Now, I contain it mostly to the weekends. Back then, I did it nightly." Yang smirked, ruffling the hair on Blake's head, careful not to be rough with her ears. "Having a kid around mellowed me out. I couldn't drink so much with you looking up at me with those big golden eyes of yours. Anyway, I was just leaving the bar when another riot broke out. You ran barreling down the alley, and Cardin got ahold of you."

It was then that Blake tensed up, so Yang shook her head. That was the line, she wasn't going to cross it. Instead, she waited, watching as Blake's mind took the girl someplace she probably didn't want to be. Her unfocused gaze, probably recalling the bloody fist fight of two young hunters-in-training. Two angry humans who smeared each-other into a bloody pulp. The shots of their weapons firing into pure aura, until there was nothing left but skin to protect them. When the bullets ran out, their fists did the talking.

When it looked as though Blake was going to stay in that dark place, Yang reached out her hand, laying it firmly over Blake's shoulder. "No, ya don't." She said, watching as the young Faunus startled under her grip. "Don't go there Blake. The past is the past. Leave it alone."

"I…"

"No, don't linger on it. Just leave whatever it was alone." Yang interrupted. "I know that sounds bad to say, but you have to. You'll drop out if you can't learn how to compartmentalize the tougher things you're going to face down."

"So…you got…hurt…because of me." Blake said slowly, her voice edgy. "What then?"

"Your mom felt responsible." Yang said.

"Doesn't she always?" Blake murmured.

Yang only smirked and nodded.

"You've never had your aura broken." Yang said. "It takes a long time to recover. It's a lot of bed rest. You have to take it easy. Your body won't actually let you exert it. You push it too hard, you'll just pass out and puke your guts out later. It's really not all that fun." Yang let out a huff, pulling back her hair. She pointed at the thin mark that sat just below her hairline. "You can't heal wounds with a broken aura, either. That's why I've got the scar up here, and the ones on my arms, and knuckles."

Blake nodded. "We learned about broken aura in Signal."

"No, you didn't. You just think you did." Yang said. "Reality is worse." Yang saw that Blake was about to slip into whatever dark place her mind took her to before, but Yang jostled her, and shook her head. "Focus on me. Not on whatever the hell you were just thinking about."

Blake only tilted her head a bit to look at Yang. Slowly she nodded. "Okay…" It was barely a whisper.

If Yang hadn't been so close, she would have never heard it.

"Right, so, onwards and upwards…" Yang said, clearing her throat. "The thing is, Blake, humans and Faunus weren't supposed to intermingle. Not even to just talk. It was a big thing, and even though as a huntress the rules didn't apply to me, I still had to be careful. Because of that, and because I had a lot of my own problems. I pushed your mom away a lot back then."

"Mom never lets up though."

"I know." Yang chuckled then. "Trust me, it was one of the first things I figured out about her. Honestly, I don't think I would have recovered so quickly without her. It wasn't just the bumps and bruises. I could deal with those. Thing is, a broken aura hurts deep. It's heavy on the mind, and changes how you think. After you break your aura once, you finally get it…"

"Get what?" Blake asked, her hand falling over Yang's. She needed the anchor to keep her in the moment. She needed to take a breath, to keep from fixating on a place in her past that haunted her dreams in ways she couldn't even explain.

There was no sugar coating it. Yang knew that. "That you can die, just like everyone else."

Blake's hand clenched, and Yang put her strong palm over those trembling fingertips.

"It won't ever really hit home until then." Yang said softly. "At least, it didn't for me."

Blake curled into herself sadly. "Oh…"

Yang leaned forward then, pulling Blake close and wrapping an arm around her. "It's not an easy job. Being a huntress takes you to places you've never have the opportunity to be otherwise. I won't lie to you though, you're going to learn things about yourself. Dark things. Shitty things. Things that other people would never know about themselves."

"Like…?"

"Nope, that's something you have to learn for yourself." Yang said with a soft grin. A sigh of equal measure followed. "Anyway, screw all of that. Don't let it weigh you down."

"How can I not?"

"Focus on the story. It has a happy ending. You know that." Yang nodded her head towards the house. "Your mom's got a gift for reading people. I was standoffish on the outside, but she knew I was starving for attention on the inside. She always used to touch me in little ways, trying to get close. That's how Faunus bond, so, it makes sense to me now. It didn't back then."

"Why not?"

"It just didn't."

Blake looked down at their joined hands. She breathed in Yang's scent. She could never imagine what Yang described. It seemed so impossible.

"I guess, at first, I didn't trust her. I wanted to. Deep down, I had a hard time doing that." Yang said honestly. "I know she was only trying to help, but back then, she drove me crazy."

* * *

 **Vale: Flashback – Nearing the end of the Great War.**

There were laws that Faunus had to obey, and right now, Kali was breaking every single one of them.

"You should use the wheel chair." The Faunus lamented. Even so much as speaking to a human out of turn could warrant serious consequences.

Yang merely huffed. "I told you, I don't need it."

"You're going to fall." Kali chided, reaching for the blonde as she stumbled. Another law smashed to bits by the sink-to-skin contact. Faunus were not allowed to touch humans.

"Not the first time." Yang grunted, pulling away from Kali's gentle grasp, nearly falling forward as she did.

"Enough!" Kali ordered as she extended her claws, clutching at the fabric and dragging the girl back before she could hit the floor. She pressed Yang to sit back onto the bed as she sighed in relief. It was only then that she put her claws away. A third and final straw. Faunus were not allowed to actively use their traits in the presence of a human. "Must you be so difficult?"

"Must you be a total pain in my ass?" Yang said as she finished gathering her things. She shoved them into a backpack. When she bent over to gather her last wayward sock, a wave of nausea fell over her. Yang sat back down onto the bed, holding her head in her hands. "Damn…"

"I've seen Grimm that are less ornery." Kali said with a tinge of humor. Soft footfalls crossed the distance to Yang's bed. Kali ever so gently ran her fingers into Yang's messy mane of hair. "There, you see? You aren't doing nearly as well as you claim you are. If you were, you wouldn't be suffering like this."

"Stop that." Yang said, but Kali didn't. "I said, cut it out." She forcefully removed those gentle fingers away from her hair. "Don't touch my hair."

"Why not?"

"I hate that." The blonde muttered.

"Yang…"

"No, I mean it." The said fiercely, cutting off any further explanation. "You want to see me catch fire? I will, you know."

"I'd douse you in water, then." Kali insisted gently, clicking her tongue against her teeth. "You shouldn't be so stubborn."

"I told you to stop freaking out over me. I can handle getting my ass handed to me every now and then, okay?" She said, eyes red, semblance flaring. "Back off." It burnt out just as quickly as it came, and she closed her eyes again, sighing. Her aura couldn't sustain, and her semblance lacked the power she needed it to have. "I don't need you hovering over me."

"You certainly need someone to." Realizing how patronizing that might sound, Kali folded her ears down. "I'm sorry, perhaps that was too far. It's a bad habit."

"Fine, but I'm not a little kid." Yang told her. "Besides, you really should just buzz off. You really don't belong here."

"This hospital is Faunus friendly, I'm within my rights to be here. Besides, so long as you don't press charges, my speaking with you isn't nearly the crime it could be." The cat Faunus pointed out. "However, you are in need of help, even if you don't agree. I think it would be worse to leave you to your own devices. Cruel, even."

"I'm just happy it's me sitting here trying not to puke." Yang groused, a gruff sincerity in her tone. "Faunus don't always have it good in the city. I'd hate to have to see you, or that kid of yours, dealing with a busted aura…not that you'd know how to use it, but still. Hell, let's be real, you'd probably end up dead."

"I'm well aware Yang. To be honest, there isn't a day that possibility doesn't cross my mind." Kali agreed.

Yang swallowed down a bit of bile and then regarded Kali darkly. "You've got to watch your back, and keep that kid on your side of the barricade. She's got to learn to cross over at the right checkpoints. If a trained huntsman got after you for real, you probably wouldn't live long. Until these talks finish, you really got to be careful."

"I _know_ , Yang. I've seen so much worse." Kali said without hesitation, a brutal sense of honesty in her tone. The statement hung in the air, disgusting, and deeply sinister. Kali looked away then, her lips thinning into a tight and confused line. The brash human didn't make any sense to her. "You are unbelievably kind to Faunus. Perhaps, for a human, you are too kind."

"Hey, it's not my thing to beat up little kids." Yang mumbled. "Besides, she just crossed the wrong side of the street. It's not like she could hurt anyone. Cardin's just a jackass anyway, always has been. Don't sweat it."

"It would be wrong of me to ignore the obvious debt that should be repaid…"

"You don't owe me anything."

"I know you truly believe that, but forgive me for saying that you're wrong." Kali's voice grew ever so soft as she swallowed back an outburst she would have had no control over. "Faunus have been killed for less. She might not have gotten away with just a stern reprimand. You were there, and you protected her when I was unable to do so. I owe you more than you could ever know."

"I didn't protect anyone. I was drunk off my ass, and angry. Cardin really pisses me off." Yang merely grumbled as she crossed her arms. "That jackass."

"I'm begging you, please allow me to extend my deepest gratitude. Use the wheelchair Yang, and allow me to help." Kali said, edging it closer to the young woman in front of her. "It would mean a lot to me if you did."

"If I do, will you shut up and just take me home?" Yang asked her. "No more coddling, or hovering, or whatever the hell it is that you're doing?"

Kali nodded. "I will abide by our agreement, whatever that might be."

With more agitation than Yang had ever meant to display, she flopped down into the wheel chair, her backpack sitting in her lap. "Suppose you'll wanna push me too…"

Kali didn't say a word, but she did get behind Yang. Without hesitation, she pushed Yang down the hall with a smile spreading across her lips. The happy victory a silent one. Yang looked annoyed the entire time. In truth, her hands were shaking, her body was fatigued, and she needed to rest as much as she could.

She didn't want to admit it out loud, but she needed the help.

Kali's car was a rusted heap of junk, the white paint chipping off its aged body. The soft blue interior and the snowflake design proved that it was one of the Schnee family's dust models. Yang blinked, giving Kali a look. "The SDC…"

"Beacon provided it." Kali murmured, averting her eyes as she opened the passenger side door so that Yang could get in.

"I'm not judging, just kind of surprised, that's all."

Kali only nodded as she took the chair back to the front door of the hospital. It went unspoken that a Faunus driving an SDC vehicle was nearly unheard of. Many on both sides would see it as a betrayal.

While Yang waited, she noticed that the inside wasn't much better than the outside. The upholstery was ratty. Claw marks in the back was proof that the child was a cat Faunus. The child's safety seat was also all clawed up and colored with splotches of what looked to be marker. Stickers were haphazardly stuck all over where little hands could reach, and an empty carton of snack crackers had been left abandoned on the floor.

Yang smirked at the mess as Kali climbed in beside her.

"I'm sorry, Blake doesn't particularly like the car very much." Kali said then as she reached into her purse to pull out her scroll. She connected it to a small cable and turned on the tracking system. All scrolls had it as a standard feature. The atlesian gift of higher technology. "Would you like to stop off anywhere?"

"Nah."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like something to eat?" Kali said again, in hopes of getting the huntress to tolerate a little bit more help. "A huntress needs calories."

"Not right now." Yang huffed. "Sleep is what I need. Take me home."

Kali only sighed dejectedly. "If you could please type in your address, it would make things a lot easier."

"You don't have to do that. I'm in the system."

"What system?"

"Watch this." Yang pressed a small icon at the bottom of the map to exit out of it. Then she went to the app store, and downloaded Vale's official mission application. Typing her Beacon ID number, a whole list of addresses came up, along with her scroll number. "There, now you've got my mission data. It's mainly used for employers, but considering I've written my injury down as a work related incident, it should be fine."

She tapped an icon that would take them to her family home out in the country, and the GPS loaded the information instantly. "Beacon's out for break, so the homestead will have to do."

Kali glanced at Yang one last time before turning the key and beginning their journey. "Alright, let's get you home."

"We're going to be stuck together for three solid hours, you get that, right?" Yang muttered as they turned onto the busy road. "Patch isn't exactly what I'd call close. With all of the barricades, we can't use the highway. We'd have to use the back roads. If you wanna drop me off at the bus station, that'll be fine. I can easily get to the sea port from there."

"I don't mind the drive." Kali responded as she turned up the air conditioning. "Blake's spending the weekend with her father, so I don't have any further responsibilities today. You're my only concern. In light of that, we should fill in your prescriptions on the way."

"I'm good."

"Yang…"

"I know you people don't get it, but I can't get too reliant on medical crap." Yang just kept looking on ahead, unwilling to even glance at the woman driving. She was afraid to see that pitying look in her eyes again. "Out in the field, you're lucky to have a band-aid. My aura's got to repair itself. It's got to get stronger, and I've got to learn to put up with it…I was lucky this time. Outside of Vale's walls, I might not be."

"If you insist." Kali said, giving up that fight before it could begin. "Then, if I may ask, is there any possible way that you would permit me to further help you recover?"

"No. This is going to be my job one day. Well, maybe not knocking around racist classmates. That's not really in the job description. Protecting defenseless people is, though." She finally let her lilac eyes cut to Kali. "You didn't hire me, I did it by choice. You don't owe me squat."

Kali could only try so many times. After coming up short after so many attempt, she knew it was time to stop. Reaching for the radio, she found a station playing easy-listening tunes. She kept it low as she changed the conversation. Something simple and easy should help. "So, how do you like Beacon?"

"It's fine."

"Do you enjoy your classes?" Kali asked.

"More or less."

"Are you close to your team?"

"Kind of."

The short answers were once again a sign of defeat. Reluctantly, Kali stayed quiet, continuing to fight the traffic all the way to Patch.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 **Setting: Vale, Present Day. 14 Years after the Great War.**

"It sounds like you really didn't like her." Blake observed when there was a lull in the story. Yang was sending some sort of message on her scroll, but the screen was held away from Blake so that she couldn't read it. Knowing Yang like she did, it was probably something having to do with an upcoming mission.

"It wasn't that I hated her or anything." Yang said as she set her scroll down again. "She just threw me off balance."

Blake nodded, grinning as the scroll buzzed again. Yang picked it up, sending another message, tapping the screen with a little more force than she needed. Thinly concealed agitation made her eyes flicker from red to lilac before she was done sending her reply.

"The car ride helped though." Yang went on to say, setting her scroll off to the side once again. She nudged it even further away with her foot, as if it had bothered her for the last time.

Blake flicked an ear curiously. "How so?"

"We were stuck together for three hours non-stop. It wasn't like we talked much. It was just being around her that helped. It made me realize, I wasn't just a means to an end." Yang explained as she twiddled with a few unruly strands of hair. She pushed them behind her shoulder, shrugging the cascade of behind her back. "I'd never had someone care for me. At least, no one that was entirely removed from my inner circle. I guess I just thought that if I wasn't useful, it wouldn't happen. Your mom was different. During that ride, she grew on me like a fungus."

"Ew." Blake grimaced.

"It's true."

"Still, ew."

"Still true, and that's what you said you wanted." Yang said, noticing that both her glass and Blake's were empty. She looked to the girl, trying to study her. "Side stepping all of that for a second, are you feeling the warmth of the booze yet?"

Blake could feel it, and she wasn't entirely sure she liked the way her head swam. It was like being under water, her keen senses were dulled in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on. "I don't know if I'm buzzed, but…" Blake trailed off, trying to concentrate. She couldn't quite articulate how she felt. "I'm something…"

"You're good enough." Yang said, catching on easily enough. "You want to get rid of feeling that way, right?"

"Yeah, I…" Blake shook her head, her ears flopping forward a bit as they twitched. "I don't really like it."

"Pop your aura on full blast for a sec, it'll burn whatever's running through your system. Drugs, alcohol, basic animal venom, bunch of other stuff. So long as you haven't been compromised, your aura and metabolism should take care of it." Then, as an afterthought, she added more for herself to drink. "If you go on a binge, or you're dealing with potent venom, aura won't be enough. Catch yourself early, you'll be fine. Too late, and it won't work."

Blake felt the warmth of her aura, the wisps of it floating off of her as clarity slowly suffused her being. It was like a mask of haze was lifted from her mind. Her eyes lit up, fascinated. "That shouldn't be possible." She looked down at her empty glass, then back at Yang. "I shouldn't feel sober right now."

Yang just scoffed. "Check your aura…"

Blake did, it had dropped a full twenty percent according to her scroll. She looked down at the numbers, considering them before turning her gaze back to Yang. "It dropped a bit, but, I'm still in the green."

"Perspective paints a darker picture, kid. One more glass would have shot you right into the yellow, maybe even red." Yang said, pointing to the screen. She had to dull the glimmer on those golden eyes. It wouldn't be easy, but she would rip away the mysticism from reality. Teaching Blake about the contours of a powerful aura was a lesson perhaps learned too late. "There are limits to what your aura can do. Both on and off the battle field. Respect them, or you'll end up dead. I don't want to see you in a body bag."

Even while Yang gave that dark warning, she still sipped at her own drink.

It brought to light a question that nagged at Blake's senses. The Faunus eager to quell her curiosity. "Why does aura react to alcohol anyway?"

Yang seemed to consider that, taking a great deal of time to roll it around in her own head. Her silence dragging on. "The simple answer is that alcohol is a little poisonous. Your body reads it that way. That's why we're using it for this training. I wanted you to put your aura's limits into perspective. You're going to get hurt out there on missions, but know the limits of your aura. Know how much you can take, and remember not to use it frivolously."

"I won't." Blake promised.

"If it shatters, it's not pretty." Yang warned, as if to drive the point home. "Honestly, I have half a mind to make you break it once before you go to Beacon, just so you see what it feels like. I'd rather you break it here, where you can recover safely, rather than someplace that'll get you killed. Not to put too fine a point on the subject, but, I guess I should thank you."

"Why?"

"Trying to protect you, and getting hurt the way I did, really taught me a valuable thing…"

"Not to pick a fight drunk?" Blake asked, an edge of dryness coloring her humor.

"Well, that too, but no." Yang said softly. "It taught me how afraid I was of being completely alone. I didn't want your mom hounding me like a kid. At the same time, the thought of her walking out of my life completely freaked me out. I made her a passing offer, because at least that way, she couldn't disappear completely."

* * *

 **Vale: Flashback – Nearing the end of the Great War.**

There wasn't much to say as the drive lulled on. Kali quietly listened to the traffic and news reports. She kept the volume low enough that Yang would strain to hear it clearly. She wanted to carry on a pleasant conversation, but Yang was in no capacity to do so. The blonde was distracted, her eyes searching the streets. There was an edge in her glance, sharp like a knife.

Kali didn't know what Yang searched for. She didn't think it wise to ask, either.

Eventually, the huntress-in-training exhausted herself. Yang's eyes struggled to stay open, droopy eyelids falling shut as she snoozed lightly.

Even her soft snores were unguarded and endearing. Unfortunately, Yang's rest was fitful. Occasionally, she would mumble phrases that Kali couldn't quite understand. For much of the drive, Yang dozed that way. Sleepily recovering from her weakened state. She woke up as soon as she could hear the seagulls squawking in the distance. The horns of the boats calling out, low and steady, the same as always. They called to her, and Yang forced herself to wake up, and rub the sleep from her eyes.

The ferry was Yang's favorite way to land on Patch.

There were other modes of transport. Some of them were cheaper. Others were faster, and thus more effective. The boats were one of the oldest, tried and true. Loved dearly by those who used it daily for their commutes. The Island was a short ride away from Vale's port, but the fresh air and open water was Yang's favorite way to spend her time traveling. It made her nostalgic too. Her mind carried her back to her life as a little girl, watching as the fish jumped around on the waves alongside the boat.

It was a happier time back then.

Her valiant effort in avoiding old memories failed spectacularly as a few passengers with bikes entered. The family took their seats along the sides of the boat. Children looked over the edge, giggling over something Yang couldn't see. The man with them paid for the tickets, and the woman at his side held the hand of the youngest child. They were probably tourists looking for a safe place to spend the day. Even though Yang took in the sight with mild interest, Kali seemed downright perplexed.

"What?" Yang muttered. "Never been one of these before?"

"It's not that." Kali said, even as she looked down at her car keys, as if studying them. "It's that I've never seen so many Faunus and humans side by side. At least, not without violence to go along with it. The whole idea is rather humbling. My ex-husband and I wrote texts on the subject, though none of them ever became published. To be honest, in the eyes of many peace between humans and Faunus isn't possible. "

"Yeah, well, Patch is a rinky-dink little island on the ass end of nowhere. There's a handful of stores, a few places to eat, a tavern, and that's about it." Yang said with no real heat to her tone. "What are we going to do, walk a solid half mile in any direction just to clock someone upside the head? Why go looking for people we don't even like in the face? What's the point of that?"

"With the way things are right now, does there ever need to be a point?" Kali returned, her question an honest one. "If there is one, I haven't found it. Humans and Faunus are capable of some very awful things. On many occasions, there is no excuse, not for either side."

"I think you're getting the wrong idea, here." Yang grumbled before looking back over to Kali and sighing. She stretched her arms out in front of her as far as the confines of the car would allow. "We're not best friends or anything. Sure we don't get into the same kind of fights as people in Vale. Really though, it's easier not to care."

"And yet, a riot has yet to break out on this boat." Kali pointed out. "Vale can't last an hour without unrest, and here, you make peace sound commonplace."

"Most people on Patch don't dick around either, though. We work hard for our honest living. If you disrespect one of us, you disrespect all of us." Yang began, feeling a little uneasy with what she was about to suggest. "Speaking of that, I was thinking, Vale's a pretty dangerous place for Faunus. You don't have to live there, you know."

"It isn't always so dangerous." Kali murmured softly. "There are plenty of communities catered to Faunus."

"Plenty more that aren't." Yang shot back.

"That still doesn't make it dangerous." Kali replied. "There are worse places to live."

"There are better places too. It can be dangerous. I get that I'm looking at the glass half full here, but that's the way I see it. It's just not safe. Especially for little Faunus, like…um…"

"Blake." Kali supplied.

"Yeah her…" Yang said as a man stopped in front of Kali's window. He leaned into the car, telling them the cost of a ticket. Instead of paying, Yang flashed a card proving that she had a residence on the island. She'd already pre-paid. Once he nodded and walked away, she continued. "Anyway, it's just not safe down where you are. Then again, it's not really completely safe anywhere in Vale."

"My home is there." Kali replied. "Besides, leaving never solves anything. The Faunus must stand as a community, and I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't do the same."

"Yeah, well, don't say I didn't warn you." Yang said. "You've got my mission tag now, so if you need it, you should use it. I can be armed and in the heart of Vale faster than the police if I have to be."

"And how, pray-tell, would you manage that?"

"My rocket locker, how else?" Yang said, but she could tell that Kali assumed she was joking. "Those lockers are meant to send us our combat gear if we need it. They can fly anywhere in Vale in an instant. I could literally program it to land on top of your car right now, if I wanted."

"I would prefer if you didn't, actually." Kali laughed, just in case such a tall tale happened to be true.

"Well, yeah, that would kind of be a problem if I did." Yang grinned, but the humor didn't quite reach her eyes. She looked away. Fixating on the birds in the distance. They were a good distraction, if nothing else. "I'm just saying, it's possible."

"I hope it would never come to that…"

"Me either, but if she runs off again, or you get into some sort of trouble…or something…I can be there faster than the cops."

Kali truly smiled at that. "What kind of citizen would I be to turn down an offer of protection from a huntress?"

"Huntress-in-training." Yang corrected. "It's all lazy work from this point on though. We're done with missions. We just need to do our end of the year field tests in Forever Fall, but that'll be a breeze. Can't do that until the council makes up their mind about civil rights for Faunus. That could take a while. Might be years till I get my license at this rate."

"Three years since the skirmishes entered into Vale from Atlas." Kali murmured. "Ten years since the skirmishes in Atlas and Vacuo began. It seems so long ago, now."

"Plenty of dropouts since then at Beacon too." Yang told Kali. "No team can graduate until the council comes to a decision. Those of us stationed at the barricade can't test for our licenses until we're relieved from our posts, and with everything getting more violent, Ozpin won't let that happen."

"I can't believe you're so eager to venture into Forever Fall anyway. Isn't that place dangerous?" Kali queried. "It must be crawling with Grimm."

"I've been going there since initiation day." Yang said, not minding the thought of those large beasts roaming around. "It's a little dangerous. I wouldn't just stroll around for fun. It's still infested with Grimm, like you said, but I'm used to them."

"I see." Kali said, her voice edging upon skepticism. "Well, you should still be careful then."

Yang only nodded. She already knew that. Being a huntress was in her blood. Her uncle was a huntsman, her father had been one too. Resting her head in one of her bandaged hands, she sighed as the boat continued on.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

 **Setting: Vale, Present Day. 14 Years after the Great War.**

Huntress or not, Yang still jumped at the sound of the back door opening abruptly. That Blake also startled at the sound only proved how sneaky Kali could be. The amusement twinkled in her gaze as she stepped out into the darkness of night.

"You do realize it's almost midnight, don't you?" She asked as she held a tray in her hands. The tea set was one of many, but this particular one was her favorite to use. She knelt down, careful not to jostle the china. "You'll catch a chill just sitting out here like that."

"We have aura." Yang pointed out. "We're fine."

Kali only hushed her, insisting on passing around the warm drink she had just made. Yang took the cup of tea that was handed to her. Her fingers wrapping around the cup, holding it close. Blake did the same, the temperature outside had dropped quite a bit, and she had certainly noticed.

"Thanks mom." Blake said, sipping on the warm beverage. Tea was also her favorite thing to drink as well. It was a welcome change to the bitter whiskey that Yang had been forcing on her.

"Think nothing of it." Kali nodded as she settled herself in more comfortably. "So, you two have been out here chatting for quite a while. I was wondering what that could be about. Care to share?"

"About you and I." Yang said. "Blake wanted to know how we got together."

"Oh?" Kali asked. "Where did you leave off?"

"Yang was drugged up on aura enhancers, and you were driving her home…" Blake supplied helpfully, causing Yang to roll her eyes.

"I wasn't that hopped up." The blonde grumbled. "Well, maybe, I was a little."

"I'll never forget that drive." Kali said with a small smile. "I almost forgot she was a huntress, the way she curled up in the seat."

"Annnd here we go, right now memory lane." Yang groused. "Good job, kitten, now look what you did."

"Oh, hush." Kali replied, slapping Yang's thigh playfully. "Surely you didn't expect to tell a story like this without me. You can't leave a story like this to Yang, she'll leave out all the juicy details. Honestly, the way she puffed herself up so much, you'd think she was a lion Faunus without a tail."

Blake's cheeks turned red instantly. " _Mom_!"

"Kali, this is training." Yang warned from between gritted teeth, also fighting down a blush. "It's not just mindless chit-chat, I told you that before."

"How could telling such fond memories be considered training?" Kali said with a click of her tongue. "Why must everything the two of you do be considered training, anyway? You hardly look the part."

"Whenever I do look the part, you complain that I'm dumping my weapons all over the house. Alright, babe, you can stick around. Just don't say I didn't warn you." Yang only shook her head, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small vial of white powder. "Okay, Blake, see this? It's a date rape drug." Then she pointed to Blake's tea cup. "Hand it over. I need you to know what this feels like too."

"Yang Xiao Long, don't you dare!" Kali gasped, horrified.

"I told you, we're aura training." Yang bit back, giving Kali a glair. "Now shut up a sec, because this is important." She loved the woman dearly, but she wasn't cut out to deal with the harsh realities a huntress had to face. Satisfied that Kali wouldn't argue further, she turned to Blake. "Alright, phase two. How to test a drink." She splashed a little of the white power into the hot tea, watching it dissolve perfectly. "You've got two options here…"

She held Blake's hand palm up. "First way is to flair your aura in your palm, and pour the liquid into it. Normal drinks dissolve. Some get sticky, others evaporate, but none of them react badly to aura. Synthetic drugs on the other hand…well, just flair your aura and watch…"

Blake did, the deep violet glow was bright in the depths of night. Yang didn't hesitate, pouring a bit into Blake's palm. The volatile reaction was instantaneous as the drug reacted, the particles of medical grade dust flared to life. This particular drug, fortified with ice dust, crystalized in an instant.

"See that?" Yang said. "Medical grade ice dust."

Blake nodded. "What's the second option?"

"Aura on your tongue." Yang told her. "Sometimes, you can't, or don't want to be obvious about testing a drink that's offered to you. So you do this, watch me." She tipped the cup back, taking a mouthful, but instead of swallowing, she ignited her aura hard inside her mouth. It wasn't a second later that she spat ice crystals out onto the patio. "See?"

"Oh my god…" Kali gasped. "Yang, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, don't worry…" Yang continued to spit out more crystal before drinking from her own clean tea and rinsing out her mouth. "My aura will burn the rest of it off."

"Where did you even get something like that anyway?" Kali asked harshly.

"Not now, babe." Yang told her.

"Yang!"

"I said not now!" The huntress shot back, eyes red and smoke lifting from her head. "Now either go inside, or sit there, but stop interrupting this." Yang demanded hotly before cooling her semblance before it could erupt. "It's a lesson, like it or not." Cooling her temper, she turned to Blake. "Now you give it a try, Blake. Hold it in your mouth, pop your aura on, and once you feel the dust react, get rid of it."

Much to Kali's firm disapproval, Blake did exactly that, spitting ice crystals out of her mouth the same as Yang. The young huntress-in-training gagging at the bitter taste that fizzled to life the moment that the dust reacted. She coughed as she sputtered, ears folding back at the horrible taste. Yang offered what was left of the clean mug, watching Blake gulp it down.

"See what I mean?" Yang asked. "If any drinks react like that, any at all, there's something in it with dust. The Vale's food and drug administration prohibits the use of any dust inside food and beverages sold within the walls of Vale. The rules are different in other kingdoms."

"Atlas doesn't work that way." Blake said knowingly, coughing one last time. "They put dust in everything."

"That's why you play it safe." Yang said, before turning back to Kali. "We'll need few new clean cups of tea, if you please." Yang said, placing both of the contaminated teacups on the tray.

Kali rolled her eyes, muttering about belligerent huntresses and reckless behavior.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Blake asked, as Kali retrieved clean china.

"Beacon." Yang told her. "There's a whole class on this stuff, but I don't wanna leave it up to them. No matter where I am, or what that kingdom allows in their drinks, I always follow a very simple rule of thumb. There's a saying, and it goes like this: If there's dust, spit you must. Atlas doesn't put dust in their water supply, so if you have to, stick to that."

"Catchy way to remember it." Blake deadpanned, as she watched Yang sweep away the cubes of frozen crystals onto the bushes with her hands.

"I'd like to think so." Yang readily agreed as Kali came back outside with two new fresh cups to pour tea into.

"Are you finished being a bad role model, Yang?" Kali asked.

"Nah, not yet, but it's time for another little break." Yang said, lifting up her own scroll, and showing off her aura level. "See, ninety five percent…let's see yours Blake?"

The younger Faunus was a bit more winded. "I've dropped down to sixty."

"See, this is why we're taking it slow." Yang said to Kali. "And, why we're talking about days gone by to pass the time. You can't push training like this too fast, or it'll just blow through all of her aura and shatter it."

Kali only shook her head. She didn't understand any of it. "I asked you to be careful."

"We're fine." Yang told her. "Now that you're out here, though, you might as well continue the story from where I left off. Give your side of things a bit…"

"I'd be happy to, and while I do, you're going to dispose of that." Kali said, pointing to the small bottle of white powder. Then, her ears perked in delight as a thought came to mind. "Well, now a long story like this deserves refreshments. I should make some sandwiches to snack on before I begin…"

A long suffering sigh broke through Yang's lips as her lover headed back into the house. There was no use fighting it. Deflated, she just looked to Blake. "And this is why I don't talk about missions at home. If she knew half of the stuff I've run into, she'd either worry herself sick, or drive me bat-shit…" she carefully placed the little bottle back into her mission pouch.

"Didn't mom tell you to get rid of that?" Blake asked.

Yang grunted. "Didn't she tell you not to keep Gambol Shroud in the house?"

"First rule of training, always have your weapon accounted for." Blake replied.

"Exactly, she's not a huntress, Blake." Yang shot back. "This stuff didn't start as a drug. It was originally Grimm tranquilizer. Deigned as a way to subdue Grimm without killing them. Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck made the powder to lace weaponry. Hunters were able to tag Grimm that way, to learn their migratory patterns. As a hunter, it's not hard to get. That's why some people use it as a drug."

Yang got up, walking out into the yard to gather wood. She knew it would be a long night in the first place, only made longer if Kali was to join them.

When Kali returned, it was to find that Yang had started a fire in the sandpit. The flickering blaze was enough to illuminate the yard. The light dancing as far as the edge of the trees. Kali walked over to her favorite log, a tray of finger sandwiches in hand. Yang pulled out a wooden folding table, brushing off the webs and displacing a spider who would need to find a new home. Once they were set up and prepared for the long story ahead, the three of them sat down to watch the wood burn.

Kali smiled as Blake reached for one of the little tuna sandwiches, while Yang reached for one of the turkey ones. The two of them chomping into the snack the exact same way. Refreshing her tea and taking a slow sip, she too, reached for a delicate tuna sandwich.

"I suppose I should ask, do you remember much about when you were very little?" Kali questioned around a bite of food.

Blake merely shook her head. "Just the apartment where I used to skid into the walls. Pretty hard to forget that."

That made perfect sense to the elder Faunus, and she let a soft hum of acknowledgement slip from her throat. "You did do that a lot, didn't you? It isn't a surprise, you were very young at the time." Kali said. "I worked for your uncle Tucson when you were little. Back then, he owned a bookstore. It was a small shop, and we really didn't make a lot of money. To be honest, it was never my plan to settle as a shopkeeper. It just fell into place."

Vaguely, in some small way, Blake remembered that old store.

She loved books now, but as a youngster, she recalled liking to destroy them. The crinkling sound of paper, the tactile sensation of crunching it between her fingers. Many children's books had been given to her merely because she had clawed them beyond selling. Plenty of those still sat in the bottom shelf of her room, beloved artifacts of simple, carefree days.

"What were you actually going to do, mom?" Blake asked.

"Truthfully? Politics." Kali laughed then. "Well, that was my hope anyway. It occurred to me pretty fast that a female Faunus would never stand a chance. Your father had enough of a time trying to get his own political standing off the ground. If he wasn't able to, there was no way I would."

"Humans were to blame for that, weren't they?" Blake said softly, not really liking the blanket accusation. She just didn't have a better one to go by. Her eyes drifted to the human beside her. Yang didn't even bat an eye at the affront to Vale's social structure. Exclusive to humans as it was, she supposed Yang wouldn't have any need to voice an opinion. More likely though, it was merely that Yang didn't concern herself with polarizing topics.

The wilds outside of the cities didn't care who or what she was. The Grimm were indiscriminant. Yang had the perspective of the dangers beyond the city, and cared more about that, then the petty racial squabbling. The blonde knew it didn't really amount to much. If the Grimm were ever to breach the walls of Vale, the whole population would meet its greatest equalizer, and only those who could fight would be spared.

It was that simple fact, and Yang's equally careless attitude, that gave Blake comfort. The blonde sat there merely enjoying her late night snack.

It was Kali who gave Blake's question consideration. "To some extent, I suppose they were. Humans didn't like the idea of a Faunus in any sort of power." Kali said, drawing Blake's attention back to her mother. "That was one factor of many, but humans weren't only to blame."

Blake nodded quietly, watching as Yang wordlessly reached over to grab another small turkey sandwich. The simple action soothing Blake's more pressing concerns about whether or not Yang actually minded the direction the conversation was heading.

Kali continued speaking. "Ghira, Tucson, and I poured all of our efforts into the bookshop. There was nothing else we could do at the time, and I learned to make my peace with that." As if a thought came to mind, Kali sighed wistfully. "It seemed as though not even a good, wholesome, Faunus family could meet the standard that Vale wanted us to represent. Even making a public statement that I was pregnant with you had done nothing to further Ghira's political standing. Even though we had obviously been trying for you for strictly that reason, becoming a father shifted your father's political conviction quite a bit."

"So much for that." Yang laughed around the mouthful she chewed on. She hid her mouth behind her hand as she stifled the snickers.

"Dad freaked out, didn't he?" Blake asked.

"That he did." Kali's ear flicked, the gold rings jingling softly. "We never told you this, because we didn't want to jade your opinion of us. We had an arranged marriage because our parents thought it would give Ghira the edge he would need to speak to the kingdoms about the Faunus plight. We weren't really interested in each other romantically. We agreed early on that we would divorce as soon as it was socially acceptable to do so. It just so happened that by the time we did, we had you to consider."

Blake only gave her mother a dry look, bordering on annoyance. Sometimes, things just didn't make any sense. Then again, she had learned long ago some things were best left unknown. "I mean considering dad's totally gay, I don't get how that would even be a thing in the first place." Just as Kali opened her mouth to speak, Blake reached across the space between them, clamping a hand over the woman's mouth. "I _don't want to know_ , either."

Yang burst out laughing at the exchange, causing Blake to sigh as she unblocked her mother's mouth.

The elder cat Faunus just sighed. "We had always wanted to be parents, Bake. We didn't want the union, but you were never a question or a doubt in our minds. We were always such good friends that we knew we'd be able to work it out. Besides it wasn't as I found your father was unattractive. In fact, he really was quite-" Her daughter's hand stifled the rest of her statement, and Kali merely rolled her eyes.

"Okay. Okay. I get it. Your attraction was one-sided. Don't be gross." Blake shivered, shaking her head. "Just get back to the story. You were driving Yang home, go from there..." She huffed as her cheeks tinged pink.

* * *

 **Vale: Flashback – Nearing the end of the Great War.**

"Well, this is the place." Yang said as she grabbed her backpack and opened the car door. Kali's ears flattened against her head as the door squealed in protest. A tiny chunk of rust fell from the car door. "Thanks for the ride."

"Wait, I can tell you're still unsteady." Kali was fast on her feet, turning off the car and hopping out to meet Yang on the other side. "I really don't feel comfortable leaving you here by yourself." She helped Yang to stand. They crossed up the pebble laden driveway and finally made it to the front porch. Yang fiddled with her ring of keys, her hands clumsily shaking as she tried to pick the correct one.

It took great pains to get it right. The bandages were of no help to her either, and hindered her grasp.

Kali ever so kindly reached over. Her nimble fingers taking the keys from Yang without preamble. Unlocking the door, they took their few steps into the house together.

"You can just dump me in the living room if you want."

Kali bit her lip. "If…you're sure you won't need anything."

"I'm going to be fine. Honest."

"Yang, you're not fine." Kali told her. "You won't be fine, and there's no one here to help you." Taking a breath, she looked around. "Perhaps we should call your parents."

"Can't." The blonde muttered.

"Why not?" Little did Kali know it then, but she would always regret asking such a question.

"Just me here now." Yang said, in a way that proved how practiced it was. She had said it too many times before. "My parents are probably dead."

Although Kali could see perfectly, Yang flipped on a few of the lights. Taking the keys from Kali, she left them on a small table by the door. Staggering heavily, she made her way to the sofa in the middle of the room, collapsing there.

"Probably?" Kali parroted in a harsh breath, as though she couldn't comprehend the word.

"My parents were hunters. Well, dad was. My uncle too. If people like that don't come home…" Her lilac eyes drifted to Kali. "Either they're dead, or they left me behind as a kid. It's more comforting to think they died in action protecting people. At least that makes them heroes." She turned onto her side, facing the back of the seat. "It's not really your concern."

The Faunus disagreed and bit back a very catlike hiss. The notion was alien. A concept that she would never understand. It was so asinine to think that a human parent would leave their child. It wasn't part of her nature, or the nature of any Faunus she knew. Humans, if they were to do such a thing, were cowardly beings indeed. An anger she never knew existed bubbled from the depths of that realization.

Ideology was a fickle thing, held atop a glass pedestal so easily broken by weak-willed people.

If Yang's parents had abandoned her, Kali was sure that they were worthless creatures. If they had died in the heat of battle, at the very least, as Yang said, it might have been a comfort. Although whether or not it was noble, Kali wasn't sure. For some people, it might have been. Either way, they weren't here now, and there was no amount of pressing the issue. Nothing that would solve the many inadequacies that came to mind. In the face of such a declaration, what was she to do?

Dead or gone, it didn't matter. They wouldn't be of any help.

"You didn't mention your mother." Kali replied. "We could contact her."

"Don't know where she is. She could be dead too, for all I know."

"Your team then." Kali decided, grasping the last choice she could think of. "You should speak with them."

"I will, just not now." Yang said, more annoyed than anything else. "Not all teams come running every time a member screws up. It wasn't even a real mission, only a street fight."

"I don't think you should be left on your own."

"Lay off, will ya?" Yang groused. "You did what you had to do, and it's done. Consider your gratitude paid. Just lock the door on your way out."

It was what they agreed on, Kali had to accept that. Even if she didn't want to leave Yang to her own devices, the stubborn human had made her desire to be left alone clear. There was nothing to be done about it, and no reason for Kali to linger where she was unwanted. Biting her lip, she cast a look around the lonely household. Some places had collected dust, but she doubted Yang even cared.

Kali pulled a small card out of her purse, it was a long shot, but there was nothing else she could do. She scribbled across the back with an aging pen that was almost out of ink. She didn't dare spare the time to look for another. She didn't want to give Yang another opportunity to refuse. "This is my number." She said, placing the card well within Yang's reach. "If you need anything…"

Yang said nothing, her breathing was already evening out.

It would have been wise to leave, and Kali knew that, but instead, she just stood there, watching the girl rest. "Huntress-in-training indeed." She sighed as she gathered her courage to leave as she'd been asked. It would have been rude to over stay her welcome. With great difficultly, she did what Yang wanted.


End file.
